Rural Kansas school districts have difficulty attracting candidates for board seats

Rural school districts in Kansas are struggling to fill school board seats and with declining enrollment, schools are closing or being consolidated, according to a story by Andra Bryan Stefanoni in the Joplin Globe, published near the conjunction of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

She notes one school district has three openings for its upcoming board elections, and only one person has filed to run. The district, which has 694 students spread out across 326 square miles, has an average property valuation of $28,000 — the lowest in the state. The district’s cash reserves are $300,000 to $500,000 in a given year, at a time when other districts measure their reserves in the millions.

Two years ago, the board combined students from three schools to form a centralized junior high. The district lost nine students, which at $7,900 per student translated into a loss of more than $71,000. Four teachers also lost their jobs.

Finding people to fill board seats has been another problem. In 2001, there were 51 seats for which no candidates filed. The number rose to 54 in 2003, 59 in 2005, 72 in 2007,  and in 2011, there were 62 positions for which no one filed. (Read more)